One of the hottest issues now in Nigeria is the dangerous disagreement over whether “Christian genocide” has occurred in the country. In a farcical outcome, the disagreement has pitted Nigerian government officials spanning the executive and legislative arms, Muslim and some Christian clerics, and industrial security and defense practitioners against a coalition of American and British lawmakers, international Christian advocacy organizations, and some Nigerian-based human rights organizations and individuals.
At the heart of the argument is fundamental disagreement over the types of violence, the classification of threat actors and perpetrators, and who they target, which some have described as a mischaracterization of the violence. Proponents argue that some components of the threat actors and attack vectors in Nigeria specifically target Christians, while opponents argue that it is a complex crisis of “criminality and resource conflict” and that attacks affect both Christians and Muslims. This seemingly semantic dispute is slowly turning into a deep national security threat, giving rise to conspiracy theories, harming peace efforts, polarizing populations, and potentially leading to punitive US action.
“What is common in the insecurity incidents across the country and especially in the three northern regions is the inability of the government to effectively prevent random and targeted attacks.”
The main people and groups pushing the Christian Genocide story politically in the US and calling for Country of Particular Concern (CPC) designation for Nigeria include US Senator Ted Cruz (Republican, Texas), Representative Chris Smith (Republican, New Jersey), Representative Riley Moore (Republican, West Virginia), former Mayor Mike Arnold of Blanco, Texas, and Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute Nina Shea is included. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is also advocating this classification in its July 2025 report on Nigeria. USCIRF recommended the designation for years, resulting in the State Department finally designating Nigeria as a CPC in December 2020. The State Department's subsequent decision to revoke this designation in 2021 was heavily criticized by USCIRF.
Also read: US pressure and Nigeria's unresolved trauma: Is 'genocide' too simple a framework?
The two main issues identified in USCIRF's reports on Nigeria, which it uses to buttress its claims regarding repressed religious freedom, are described as the Nigerian government's tolerance towards non-state violence, when it describes it as either “tolerating” or “tolerating” violent attacks carried out by non-state actors, including Boko Haram, ISWAP, and “armed Fulani militias” against both Christian and Muslim communities. Cited as being “slow to respond”. Another issue of particular concern to USCRIF is state-sanctioned blasphemy laws, and this highlights that 12 Nigerian states and the federal government enforce laws that are used to prosecute and imprison individuals for alleged insults to religion. USCRIF considers these laws to be a direct violation of international religious freedom standards and a form of state-level persecution, affecting Christians, Muslims, and humanitarians alike.
The following groups provide statistics and mobilization behind political pressure: Open Doors International (an organization that produces annual World Watch lists, consistently ranking Nigeria among the countries where Christians face the most persecution and is often cited as the country with the highest number of Christians killed for their faith globally), Genocide Watch (an international organization that has described the killings in Nigeria as “silent slaughter” and defenseless a form of genocide against Christians), and Christian Solidarity Worldwide, CSW, (an international Christian human rights organization that works to document and lobby against the persecution of Christians in Nigeria.)
In Nigeria, some supporters of the narrative and the classification of Nigeria as CPC include Emeka Umegbalasi, director of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), and Bishop Wilfred Anagbe, Catholic Bishop of Makurdi Diocese in Benue State. A section of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) insists that the violence is a targeted, systematic persecution with a religious and ethnic component. However, this last group is not on record as advocating for the US to classify Nigeria as a CPC. The Archbishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, has publicly argued that the CPC designation will “increase tensions, create suspicion, and open windows of doubt”, ultimately undermining the delicate, ongoing interreligious dialogue and national healing efforts.
The main problem is the divergence of narratives between the government and those advocating the Christian genocide claim. Targeted religious attacks are present throughout Nigeria, but primarily in parts of North Central, North East and North West Nigeria, where places of religious worship have been attacked and damaged or destroyed, Nigerians have been killed or abducted in both religious places of worship, churches and mosques and records of religious persecution are abundant, as are extrajudicial killings for religious or other related identities. Data from the company I founded and which I currently run, Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited (BSIL) and Armed Conflict and Location Event Data (ACLED) reflect these events. Some notorious examples are the brutal killings of Major General Idris Alkali in Plateau State, North Central on September 3, 2018 and Deborah Yakubu in Sokoto, North West on May 12, 2022.
What is common in insecurity incidents across the country and especially in the three northern regions is the inability of the government to effectively stop random and targeted attacks. There is an almost widespread crisis of weak governance and criminality, with specific areas of incidence in the North Central, North East and North West, where violence is targeted and does not differentiate between identities, which may appear to insensitive observers or researchers as religiously motivated and indicative of genocide. But even to the most casual observer, it will be clear that these events are region-wide and affect all religions, not just one.
Also read: Christian genocide in Nigeria: between the CAN situation and what the data says
The government's failure to stop the targeted attacks and align its narrative with evidence of targeted religious violence undermines its own efforts to stabilize the country and transforms a complex security threat into a serious political crisis, exacerbating social fragmentation and increasing the likelihood of punitive international action.
The most immediate danger is a further collapse of trust and solidarity that could increase trust deficits and lead to militia proliferation. Additionally, this dissent gives political ammunition to Nigeria's international critics, increasing the risk of punitive sanctions.
The two committees established by the Nigerian government (one in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, OSGF, and the other by the National Assembly, NASS) should realize that their current stance and counter-narrative, aimed at protecting Nigeria's sovereignty, is internally exacerbating the crisis. They should also realize that it would be futile to simply embark on a trip to the US without understanding the root drivers of the issues and presenting appropriate and grounded narratives. We recommend to the Government that:
1. Acknowledges the existence of religiously motivated attacks and engages the affected groups (CAN, Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, MACBAN, Farmers Union, etc.) in good faith. In doing so, it must publicly acknowledge that, while many conflicts in Nigeria are criminal and resource-based, some attacks demonstrate clear religious and ethnic targeting that meet the definition of persecution.
2. Strengthen the rule of law and ensure prompt accountability by strengthening accountability in the security sector, establishing specialized courts, and ending widespread impunity by ensuring swift prosecution of perpetrators of violent crimes throughout the country, but especially in the three northern regions, regardless of ethnicity or religious affiliation.
3. Prioritize support for displaced farmers and herders by implementing a clear, state-backed plan to resettle them on their lands, guaranteeing them protection to prevent the risk of further famine.
4. Engage US and other international partners on blasphemy laws and concerns and ensure they understand their origins in Nigeria's colonial past and how institutionalized they are in Nigerian laws today.
Only by adopting a narrative of genuine concern and pairing it with decisive, non-discriminatory action, can the Nigerian state rebuild the trust needed to extinguish the fires of sectarianism and neutralize the paramount national security risk posed by this unfortunate disagreement.
Kabir Adamu is the Managing Director of Beacon Security and Intelligence Limited.
